Friedrich Steinbauer

Friedrich Steinbauer (born April 29, 1934 in Nuremberg ; † May 4, 2003 in Falkenstein , Bavarian Forest ) was a German Lutheran missionary, religious scholar and anthropologist who also devoted himself to psychological studies.

Life

In the subject of theology he obtained a doctorate each from the University of Erlangen and from Indiana State University in the USA .

From 1961 to 1967 he worked as a missionary in Tarabo in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea . During this time he collected records from many cargo cults , evaluated them and published the results in his doctoral thesis.

1971–1972 he worked as a guest lecturer at the Martin Luther Seminar in Lae . Returning to Germany in 1974 he founded the German Melanesian Society, which was later renamed the German Pacific Society . Since 1975 he has been returning to New Guinea on a regular basis and also visiting all other states in the Pacific region in order to establish contacts with study groups and leading educational trips, which he mainly organized for members of the German Pacific Society.

From 1974 to 2001 he was President of the German Pacific Society, thereafter its Honorary President until his death.

Melanesian cargo cults

In his main scientific work Melanesian cargo cults. New Religious Salvation Movements in the South Seas (1971), the abridged and revised version of a dissertation on the history of religion and mission science ( Erlangen , 1970), he described numerous cults and social movements of various kinds throughout the area between New Guinea (West Irian) and the Fiji Islands . It is one of the most important German-language monographs on the cargo cults. Over a thousand publications are recorded in the dissertation.

Fonts

• That's how it was in Tarabo. Freimund-Verlag, Neuendettelsau 1969 (report on the history of the Lutheran mission in part of New Guinea)
• Melanesian cargo cults. New religious salvation movements in the South Seas. Delp, Munich 1971 (revised version of the dissertation: The cargo cults in Melanesia as a religious-historical and mission-theological problem. Erlangen 1970)
  • English: Melanesian Cargo cults. New Salvation Movements in the South Pacific. Translated by Max Wohlwill. George Prior; St. Lucia: Univ. of Queensland Press, London 1979. ISBN 0-7022-1095-1 .
• (Ed.): Shaping the Future. Papua New Guinea Personalities. Kristen Pres, Madang 1970.
  • German: The independent Papua New Guinea. Biographies and opinions of leading men and women in Papua New Guinea today. Heymann, Wiesbaden 1975
• Neo-Melanesian Dictionary - New Guinea Pidgin English with translations in English and German - Pocket dictionary of New Melanesian Pidgin-English-German. Kristen Pres Inc., Madang 1970
  • New edition: Neo-Melanesian-English concise dictionary: New Guinea Pidgin-English. Hippocrene Books, New York 1998. Reprinted from the Concise dictionary of New Guinea pidgin (Neo-Melanesian) with definitions in English and German (1969). ISBN 0-7818-0660-7

Web links

• Obituary - German Pacific Society